Come on, squeeze in... there's plenty of room

Remember when in June 2010, Prime Minister Julia Gillard promised she would not pursue Kevin Rudd’s ”Big Australia” population target of 36 million by 2050?

I do, and so do many others I imagine.

Why did Gillard back away from Rudd’s grandiose idea in the first place?

In my opinion Gillard mainly stated her opposition Rudd’s unpopular idea because it quickly became a flashpoint on talkback radio and reflected poorly for Labor in the polls.

Additionally, Gillard wanted to appear more moderate than Rudd, which is exactly what Rudd did to convince voters to dump John Howard as PM. Hmmm.. seems we don’t learn very much do we.

As usual Gillard sensed the political expediency of backing away from one of Rudd’s more unpopular ideas and used her first major announcement as Prime Minister to reassure disenchanted voters she did not believe in a big Australia. Gillard unequivocally stated that

Australia should not hurtle down the track towards a big population.

William Bourke, president of the federally registered Stable Population Party outlines today in the Sydney Morning Herald the cold hard facts on how Gillard has broken yet another promise to the Australian people by pursuing policies that seemed to be diametrically opposed to the actual promise that she made to us all.

We are now on target for not 36 million but 40 million by 2050.

Under Gillard, the permanent immigration program stands at more than 200,000 a year – the highest level in Australian history.

On top of this we have more than 50,000 New Zealanders now freely crossing the ditch annually, without proper immigration management such as skills testing.

To add to the population explosion, a recent Gillard government decision grants foreign students automatic working rights for up to four years, irrespective of their field.

In short, Gillard has spectacularly broken her first promise as PM. She even recently admitted that Australia would continue to run ”a sizeable immigration program”.

To be fair, it must be said that Peter Costello hasn’t had anything to do with running Australia for more than seven long years now, so our current position in relation to population cannot be left at his feet. I am not sure what the Left would do in Australia if they could no longer lay blame for all the worlds ills at the feet of the Howard government.

You are right however to imply that the Baby Bonus was a bad piece of policy, as it is widely regarded by both sides of political divide, mainly because it causes rent seeking behaviour, particularly in the demographic that should not be readily incentivised to have children. That however is another discussion all together.

What is important to also recognise is that the Labor Party has not revoked the Baby Bonus in the seven long years that they have been in power. Labor has had ample opportunity to make any sort of change to that policy that they wanted as they have in several other critical policy areas, yet the have retained it. So in this instance, they too can shoulder some of the blame for the Baby Bonus Boom.

But I am glad that you readily admit that there is a problem with Australia hurtling towards a population that our country is just not prepared for.

From my perspective that is a positive, for many IMO wrongly assume that population growth is wholly positive and not without its negatives, and thus refuse to have a discussion that is entirely required.

If we consider the problem at the most basic level it should be self evident that there are some things in the equation that can be controlled by government and some things that cannot.

Controlling the number of children people have is a very clear example of some thing that cannot and should not be controlled by government.

Immigration on the other hand is entirely within the control of government, and it should be controlled in close eye on population growth, capacity and sustainability.

The general premise of the post was that despite promising not to move towards a “Big Australia”, the Gillard government has not actively taken steps to actually prevent this from happening as Gillard promised and in fact has implemented policy decisions that seem to be at odds with her promise.

Gillard herself said “We need to stop, take a breath and develop policies for a sustainable Australia. I support a population that our environment, our water, our soil, our roads and freeways, our busses, our trains and our services can sustain.”

If we take that statement at face value, it would appear that the Gillard governments decisions over the course of the last three years in particular are indeed in direct opposition to the premise of sustainable population growth.

I look at population from a very basic perspective along the lines of capacity management. The best analogy for capacity management is from looking at a restaurant. There is a point where the benefits that people derive from something reach an equilibrium whereby the benefits begin to erode with every new participant.

The restaurant seats 50 people comfortably and everyone is happy. Because everyone is happy and the restaurant can adequately service them, the restaurant turns over a tidy profit.

But the owner thinks to himself that there is an opportunity to increase his takings by squeezing in another couple of extra tables.

However by doing so he begins to cause stress; not only from a lack of space relative to the normal situation but also stress on the capacity of his resources (in this case kitchens, cooks, wait staff, food etc) to actually service the demand.

Because of this stress, which can be felt by all participants through cramped conditions, longer wait times, less attention from wait staff etc, the overall enjoyment of the restaurant decreases for the main participants, the customers. This can lead to deleterious results such as less people wanting to come into the restaurant and as a result less takings not more.

In his effort to squeeze additional returns the owner is actually decreasing the benefits that made his restaurant successful in the first place. There is a diminishing return for every additional table that he tries to squeeze in.